The Residents

I Am A Resident Cherry red

Legendary West Coast enigmas invite fans to rerecord their material.

In terms of sound, performance and the resolute preservation of their anonymity, there is absolutely no other group like The Residents. Nor has there been an album quite like this before, for which they invited their fan base to meld with them, submitting their own versions of tracks from the group’s vast 45-year back catalogue.

The resulting album, taken from almost 200 submissions, are mixed, merged and looped across two CDs in a joyful cavalcade of memory, interpretation and revitalisation. Highlights include a combined take on Duck Stab and Easter Woman, from the album The Residents Commercial (on which each track was precisely a minute long), reworked here as a parody of Ennio Morricone, but there are so many collisions, juxtapositions and memory flashes on what amounts to a great stage invasion of an album to pick from.

The most fun I’ve had listening to The Residents in ages.